HP & the Trouble with Demons
by Moggetchan
Summary: Another HP tale joins the thousands out there...okay, so Harry finds something unexpected in his new neighbor. But she has more secrects than anyone Harry knows...
1. Chapter the First

So...this is my HP fanfiction. I'm doing this just to get rid of some boredom, and work off some steam of frustrations—for some reason, I am currently unable to put into words what I want to say for my AE fanfic. (In other words, don't panic, Sic—I'll get around to updating...eventually...)  
  
Disclaimers: Harry Potter and all characters you recognize are not my property, they are the brilliant J.K. Rowling's. Dee is mine (y'all find out who she is), and so is Sean (y'all'll find out about him, too). BTW, this is not likely to be finished, so please don't be disappointed if nothing much comes of this, or even if this is the only chapter I get out. If you don't like it, please don't tell me b/c I don't really care that much. If you do like it, hey, that's grand, but again, it's not likely to be completed.  
  
That's all I have to say for now, so here's the prologue (and first chapter):  
  
Prologue  
  
Everything was cold—colder than snow, colder than ice, colder than outer space. It was the chill of death that permeated his skin and bones, a chill so cold that he could even feel it in his hair.  
  
And there wasn't anything. Just gray in all directions. Gray and ghosts, people long dead and newly dead staring at him from lidless eyes, brushing against his skin, chilling him even further. He could hear their pitiful cries, for mercy, for forgiveness, for help, for information about the living world.  
  
He couldn't answer any of them. All he could do was move away, try and push through them, though his hands passed through them.  
  
All except one.  
  
He looked at that ghost...but she wasn't a ghost.  
  
She wasn't a ghost.  
  
She wasn't a ghost...  
  
She smiled.  
  
Chapter the First  
  
The sound of sirens awoke Harry Potter from his sleep out under the summer sun. It jolted him from dreams filled with flashes of red light and soundless screams, small balding men and evil laughter. Dreams—or rather, nightmares—of his past school year: the school year when he had lost one of his dearest friends and godfather, Sirius Black, an innocent man convicted of murdering thirteen people with one curse and betraying Harry's parents, to their death...  
  
He shook off those melancholy thoughts and sat up, blinking away the last remnants of sleep. The sirens continued, and underneath that he could hear the familiar sound of his cousin's laughter.  
  
Harry sighed and began to lay back down when a door slammed and a woman shouted; she sounded awfully close. The sirens abruptly stopped, and he heard the footsteps of his cousin and friends running away. And then the woman yelled loud enough to wake the dead.  
  
"WHO THE _HELL_ DID THIS??"  
  
Now Harry leapt to his feet. A spurt of excitement went through him; he had a feeling that Dudley and Pals were about to get what they've been asking for. For two years now, the group had been roaming the neighborhood, terrorizing the children and elderly, smoking, drinking, and being royal pains in the ass. Lately they had taken to graffitiing houses and cars; the cops had been called a few times, but for the most part everybody left well enough alone, just stoically going out and washing out or painting over whatever crude words the gang had written. But unless Harry was very much mistaken, the neighborhood's hero had just announced herself.  
  
Eager and curious to see what they had done now, Harry bounded over toward the privacy fence surrounding the Dursley's backyard and hauled himself up in order to see over.  
  
A slightly-smaller-than-average woman, slim as a willow with curly, fiery hair pulled into a ponytail, was literally prowling around what Harry assumed was her yellow Beetle Volkswagon car. She was wearing a sleeveless button-up shirt and well-worn shorts, both showing off pale skin and sleek muscles just defined enough to show that she was no stranger to hard work. Before her bare feet disappeared around the other side of the car, he noticed that her toenails were painted a bright pink. Then her face came into view.  
  
Her lips were pursed together in a look that reminded Harry of his Transfiguration teacher Professor McGonagall, and two spots of red on her pale cheeks showed just how furious she was, and Harry couldn't really blame her. In green, blue, purple, and red spray paint, Dudley and his gang had written incredibly rude words and phrases all over her car.  
  
As if aware that he was studying her and her car, the woman raised her head and met Harry's eyes over the expanse of the car roof and the wooden fence. Her green eyes meet his green eyes, but while his held a kind of fascination, hers were firing sparks of anger.  
  
"I don't suppose by any chance," she asked in a deadly calm voice, "that you know who did this?"  
  
"Probably my cousin Dudley," Harry managed to say.  
  
"And where might he live?" she demanded softly.  
  
"Right here," Harry replied, lifting one hand so she could see him pointing to the house behind him.  
  
Without another word, she whirled and Harry quickly jumped off the fence and went in through the back door, not wanting to miss this for anything. One thing was for sure, she was fast. Harry had barely made it halfway across the kitchen when he heard the doorbell ringing. He stopped in the kitchen doorway, so that he would have a good view down the hallway of the front door. He was unable to help the grin as he saw the red outline of the woman's hair through the glass panels of the door.  
  
She continued to ring the doorbell, and Harry figured she had her finger pressed firmly against the button. Only a few moments later, Harry's Uncle Vernon came hustling out of the living room, shot a snarl in Harry direction—probably for not getting the door—and yanked it open, Harry's Aunt Petunia following and stopping in the living room doorway.  
  
"What the devil is the meaning of this?" Uncle Vernon barked, glaring at the woman standing there.  
  
"You'd better keep a better rein on your son," she said calmly, meeting his gaze without flinching or backing off an inch. "And you tell him I'm expecting him and all his little friends tomorrow morning at seven o'clock sharp, and they'd better be there prepared to scrub off every last fleck of paint they put on my car. And if they don't show up by seven oh one, then by God I'll show up on your doorstep every day at seven oh one until they get that shit off my car."  
  
Aunt Petunia gasped in the doorway. The woman's gaze briefly flicked over her, and then back to Vernon, who seemed to be temporarily speechless. When he finally found his voice, just as she was turning away, it came out in a snarl that slowly turned her around. Harry had the distinct impression she was holding on to her temper by a thread.  
  
"What do you mean, my son?"  
  
"I mean your son, as in the flesh of your body," she eyed that body with barely curbed contempt as she spoke coldly, "who happened to write the words 'goddamn bitch' and 'fucking cunt' on my car."  
  
Aunt Petunia gasped even louder this time and visibly paled, one hand going over her heart and the other flailing about for the doorway. Uncle Vernon's reaction was far different.  
  
"HOW DARE YOU!" he roared, advancing from the doorway. The woman began backing up, allowing Vernon to stride ahead, and Harry darted forward to keep them in sight.  
  
"HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE MY SON OF THAT!"  
  
She began to circle in the front yard, either unconcerned about the neighbors that had popped out to see what all the commotion was about or unaware of them.  
  
"MY SON IS A FINE UPSTANDING GENTLEMAN! JUST WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!"  
  
As he finished with that statement, he took a swing at the lithe woman, something that made everybody watching drop their jaws in surprise, including Harry.  
  
"Vernon!" Petunia shrieked.  
  
Harry just stared in amazement as the woman in the yard easily ducked the fist. She dropped to the ground in a crouch and spun, one foot shooting out and catching the off-balance Vernon behind the knee and sending him to the ground, just like the karate people sometimes did in the movies. She was rising over him even as he hit the ground, staring down at him coldly.  
  
"I am Desiree McKnight," she said grimly, "Law enforcement." 


	2. Chapter the Second

Well, I'm back. Hope y'all liked the last chapter, 'cause here's the next.  
  
Disclaimer: Harry Potter & Associates do not belong to me. Dee does (see, y'all found out) and so does Sean (keep yer britches on).  
  
Chapter the Second  
  
Harry woke up so early the next morning that the sun hadn't even risen yet. At first he had no idea what had roused him, but a second later he recognized the sound of something scratching at his bedroom door. He rolled out of bed and landed silently on the floor, then quietly made his way over to the door and pressed his ear against it.  
  
"Damn twerp," he heard Dudley's voice hiss bitterly. "Wizard or not, he's gonna get it this time for tellin' on us!"  
  
"Yeah," he heard one of his cousin's cronies hiss back.  
  
Harry's heart began to pound. Dudley had told them...? He couldn't believe it! Maybe they had all been drunk again when he had spouted out that tidbit of so important information. This could ruin his life as a wizard! If any of Dudley's friends told only one other person, and then that person told one other person...things could get very complicated very quickly.  
  
But first things first. Harry moved back from the door toward his table lamp beside his bed and switched it on, counting on the bullies' stupidity to not notice the light suddenly emitting from underneath the door. Then he got down on his knees and reached underneath his bed to lift that so- useful loose floorboard, and retrieve his wand beneath.  
  
However, he hadn't counted on his cousin and his friends to open the door very quickly. Still vulnerable half beneath the bed, his door burst open and five various sized shapes came in.  
  
With the reflexes born of a true Seeker, a position in the wizarding game of Quidditch, Harry closed his hand around the familiar wood of his wand and flung himself to the side, retracting his arm, pointing his wand and opening his mouth to curse the lot of them all in the same movement.  
  
However, neither had he counted on his enemies moving as fast as they did. One boy leaped on top of Harry, blasting the breath from his body and squashing him against his hard floor, not to mention banging his head against the bed frame hard enough to make spots swim in front of his eyes. He felt his fingers loosen involuntarily on his wand, and felt too the fingers of someone grabbing it, likely his cousin. In those first seconds, Harry realized that he was overmatched.  
  
Harry Potter, rising sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, who had made his way past numerous magical obstacles within mazes twice, who had braved the Forbidden Forest more than once, who had faced down Voldemort, most feared wizard of all time, more than once—and one of those times as a baby—...was going to be beaten by a few Muggles.  
  
With that thought in mind, Harry drew in a deep breath—well, as deep as he could with Fatso on top of him—and let out a shout as loud as he could, and accompanied it with a fist that sunk into someone's flesh. He hoped it was Dudley's.  
  
By God, he wasn't going down without a fight!  
  
Unfortunately, Harry found himself not only overmatched, but overmatched by his cousin, a boxing champion, and his friends, all of whom seemed high on something. To top things off, he seriously doubted that he would get any help from his Aunt or Uncle, and Hedwig was out hunting. She wouldn't be back any time soon.  
  
He was on his own.  
  
With that additional thought in mind, Harry let out a feral growl and with a mighty heave and a quick squirm, he got out from underneath Fatso and straightened...just in time to take a fist to the face. He staggered backwards, hands reflexively going to his face, and fell back onto his bed. That probably saved him from the full force of the fist that plowed into his stomach, but it still hurt. He rolled onto his shoulders, pushing away the pain, and shot both feet out, connecting with the chest of the person stepping forward. The next thing he knew, three people piled on top of him and they all rolled off the bed, knocking something over. Fists were flying; Harry felt the impact of knuckles on his arms, legs, shoulders, and torso. He let his fist into someone's mouth and scraped his own knuckles against that person's teeth, and jerked his knee into the groin of someone trying to pin him. That one fell away with a groan, probably out for the count, but two others took his place, and someone grabbed his hair, yanking painfully. Harry was vaguely aware of voices shouting, one of them his own, as the ball of fighting flesh continued to slide across the floor with Harry at the bottom.  
  
Then came the gunshot that broke them up.  
  
Harry found himself abruptly released as bodies scrambled up, but Harry lay stunned for a second. Adrenaline still coursed through his veins, but the sudden finished left him dazed. He rolled over toward the door and stopped, unable to really believe what he was seeing.  
  
Desiree McKnight stood there, dressed in only in a tank top and running shorts that bared her midriff. One hand was on her hip, and the other held a black, deadly-looking gun that was pointed straight up. She was scowling at them all, and Vernon and Petunia were huddled behind her in their night clothes.  
  
"Now," McKnight said peevishly, "What in hell's bells is going on here?"  
  
Harry rose from the floor and all six boys stood quiet, leveling her with belligerent, defiant looks. For a moment, Harry could've sworn he saw her lips twitch as if with a smile.  
  
"All right then," she said pleasantly, "You." She nodded at Harry. "Come on; you're sleeping over at my house for now. You," she nodded at Dudley, "Keep away from my car, and that goes for the rest of you as well." Her eyes slowly went from the face of one boy to the other, finishing with Harry and lingering there. "Now you'd better show up bright and early to clean my car, and then we're going down the police station to have a nice little chat with the chief. You." Her eyes hardened on one squirming boy; Harry looked too, and didn't recognize him. "Give me your knife." She held her hand out expectantly.  
  
"Kn-kn-knife?" he stuttered.  
  
"Cut the bullshit," she growled, "and just give me the damn thing."  
  
Slowly, and looking at all his buddies first, he bent over and extracted a wickedly serrated blade from the army boots he was wearing. With a sour look on his face, he placed it in McKnight's hand.  
  
"Good." She nodded at him, then at Harry. "Now come up." She turned away, taking it for granted that he would do as she said. There was no need for her to worry, and Harry had a feeling she knew that. He didn't want to spend a moment longer in that room, even though leaving right then meant leaving his stuff. But he didn't really mind.  
  
He followed her out the front door and across the brightly-lit lawn from the stars and moon, Harry starting to limp from hurts making themselves known. She led him into the house next door without a word and into the kitchen, where she placed the gun down absently on the table and flicked on the lights. Boxes filled the room; Harry suddenly remembered a moving van from a few days before, and the For Sale sign that had been out in front before that.  
  
"Sit," McKnight said, moving toward one of the boxes and opening it, searching for it. "I'll just fix you up, and then you can bed down any where you want, though I wouldn't suggest staying on the first floor."  
  
"Fanks," Harry said, voice muffled by both the hand towel she had given him to mop up all the blood seeping from his nose and the said nose stuffed with blood.  
  
"No problem. Believe it or not, I'm used to it."  
  
"Law enforthment?"  
  
"Yeah, well, actually, that was really a rather white lie," she replied, wincing as she sat down across from Harry with a bottle of some clear liquid and band-aids. "I've been on leave for the past couple of months while they—my superiors—investigate a rather questionable case I was working on. In other words," she added dryly, "they've as good as fired me. These things can take up to two years to fully investigate, you know."  
  
Before Harry could so much as nod in some sort of reply, the doorbell rang. Instantly McKnight went on alert, her eyes and face hardening. She scooped up her gun and rose, stalking around the table. Harry watched in fascination, turning in his chair to watch as she rose on her toes to look through the peephole to see who was out there. Not recognizing who was out there, she stepped back, reached out and flipped the lock, and stepped back even more, leveling her gun on the person standing there.  
  
"Who are you?" she demanded, just as the other asked, "Where's the boy?"  
  
"Mooby!" Harry exclaimed, rising from his chair, recognizing the man standing there. McKnight lowered her weapon. "Moody?" she asked curiously.  
  
"Yeah," he growled back, scowling at her, "Who're you and what're you doing with the boy?"  
  
"I've heard of you," she said, ignoring his question, "You're the Aurorer."  
  
His eyes narrowed. "How'd you know?"  
  
"Easy," she replied, "I'm with M.I.C.O.C.A."  
  
"Ah." Moody's face relaxed—as much as he could, at any rate—and Harry actually saw the ever-vigilant Aurorer let down his guard. Harry was baffled.  
  
"Wif what?"  
  
"M.I.C.O.C.A." McKnight turned to him. "Magi's International Collaboration Of Criminal Activities. The wizarding world's version of the Muggle Interpol."  
  
"You're a withard?" Harry stared at her.  
  
"Witch, if you want to be technical," she replied with a slight grin.  
  
"What happened to him?" Moody asked, staring at Harry in his pj's.  
  
"Fight with some Muggle boys," McKnight said casually, turning back to Moody. "I'll take care of him, and he'll be here for the night." Her voice was utterly confident. Harry couldn't really blame her. If Moody relaxed around her, she was either extremely good or M.I.C.O.C.A. had an even greater reputation than that of the Aurorers.  
  
"Do you know who he is?" Moody was asking.  
  
"No idea."  
  
"Harry Potter. Heard of him?"  
  
"Potter, Potter...oh, yeah, that little kid what defeated what's-his-face, Lord Something-or-other." She waved a hand negligently. "Why?"  
  
Moody stared at her, and so did Harry. The Aurorer shook his head in disbelief.  
  
"Lord Voldemort," he supplied a bit dryly, "The most powerful and feared wizard in Europe. He's risen again, and is gathering Death Eaters and dementers."  
  
"What're Death Eaters?"  
  
Harry opened his mouth—to say what, he didn't know. But Moody was shaking his head. "Never mind. You'll find out. Just keep a sharp eye on the boy."  
  
"Sure thing. Oh, I'm Desiree McKnight. You can call me Dee. Pleasure meeting you, Moody." She shifted her gun to her other hand and stuck out her now-empty one. Moody took it and they shook, exchanged good-byes, and he left, leaving Harry in the care of a relative stranger.  
  
"Couthn't you be lyin'?" Harry blurted without thinking as McKnight re- entered the kitchen. She gave him an amused look.  
  
"Darling," she drawled, "Absolutely _no one_ claims to be M.I.C.O.C.A. unless they are actually with it."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because...they usually end up dying."  
  
A/N: Well that was long. Hope you enjoyed it. Might not go on for much longer, so don't anyone get yer hopes up. 


	3. Chapter the Third

Sic: What is it with you needing to know everything about everybody right away?! Keep your pants on, you'll learn, I promise! Sheesh...  
  
Gee, hope my creative juices start flowing this well for my AE fanfic. (Sorry it's been ages since I last updated, Sic!)  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Go away.  
  
Chapter the Third  
  
Harry groaned and rolled over, wondering for a moment where he was as he opened bleary eyes and blinked at the fuzzy-looking ceiling. It took him a moment to realize the ceiling was fuzzy because he didn't have his glasses on, and unfamiliar because he wasn't in his room. He was also lying on a hard wood floor, on top of only one blanket, the only extra Dee could find after she "fixed him up." He had to admit, he wasn't aching nearly as much as he had when he had first entered her house.  
  
Harry sat up and groped around on the floor beside him for the glasses he had taken off the night before when he remembered that they had been left on his bedside table in the other room. (A/N Yes, I know I forgot about the glasses in the last chapter.) With a sigh, he stood and made his groggy way out the near-empty room and down the stairs, reviving a little when the smell of biscuits wafted up to him. Following his nose, he made his way into the kitchen.  
  
"Morning, Harry," McKnight said, looking up from the paper spread out over the table. "Have a nice sleep?"  
  
"As well as could be expected," he replied, looking around and squinting, trying to find the source of the enticing smell.  
  
"Counter on your left; have as many as you want. I couldn't find the cereal—it's somewhere within the depths of the boxes."  
  
"Thanks, Ms. McKnight," Harry said, locating the biscuits.  
  
"No need for that. It's Dee. No Miss or Ms. or Mrs. And definitely not madam; had someone call me that in India, I think it was. Annoyed the hell—I mean, heck out of me."  
  
"No need for that. I hear swearing all the time."  
  
"I'll bet you do." She seemed to be struggling between looking amused and looking irritated. Somehow she managed to come across looking like both.  
  
"We'll run over and get your things after you eat." Her attention returned to the paper as Harry bit into the biscuit. It was buttery and practically melted in his mouth. He could barely resist the groan of absolute ecstasy.  
  
"Want some orange juice? It was all I could find."  
  
"Sure." He waited a moment while she rose and went to the refrigerator, getting out the orange juice. "How come you don't know about Voldemort or Death Eaters?"  
  
She glanced over at him. "I'm a part of M.I.C.O.C.A.," she replied patiently, "Meaning I work all over the world, though mostly in the United States, where I was born, Canada, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa or Botswana. To be truthful, this is my first trip to Europe. Believe it or not, Harry, Europe is little compared to much of the rest of the world, especially if you only talk about the U.K. Ever heard of Barack'an?"  
  
"No." Harry shook his head.  
  
"Thought not." She smiled grimly as she handed him a glass of orange juice. "He was a wizarding dictator in Kuwait a few years back. He was, in his own way, even more powerful than your Voldemort. He managed to take over much of the wizard world in Kuwait, and started on the Muggle world as well before we managed to get to him." She shook her head. "The only reason he managed to get our attention was because he raped and murdered the only daughter of a very powerful man. I was part of the group dispatched to bring his rein to an end, and believe me, the path to that was not pretty."  
  
"So Voldemort has gotten the attention of someone powerful?" Harry asked eagerly. "Is that why you're here?"  
  
"I told you, Harry, I'm here on leave. M.I.C.O.C.A. doesn't act unless asked to, and we rarely have any business in the U.K. because the Aurorers are so good." She paused, then said, "Tell you what. Give me a run down on what's going on over here and I'll see if there's anything I can do about it. Unofficially, of course."  
  
"Sure," Harry said eagerly, then stopped and thought. How to explain to someone who knows little about it?  
  
"Well, Voldemort's real name is Tom Riddle," he began slowly as Dee sat back down again, "And he was Slytherin at Hogwarts...about fifty years ago, he started terrorizing the wizarding world—I mean, the U.K. He had followers called Death Eaters, who did his bidding and killed when he told them to. They would leave the Dark Mark—a snake coming from a skull—over the houses of people they killed, and they killed Muggles along with wizards. He was defeated sixteen years ago, but two years ago he came back. Now he's gathering his forces again, Death Eaters and dementers, and everyone's afraid that he'll be in power once more."  
  
"All right." Dee was quiet, her gaze fixed on him. "Now tell me where you come into play."  
  
"Voldemort murdered my parents," Harry said evenly, meeting his gaze as much as he could while the world was fuzzy. "He tried to murder me, but the spell rebounded and hit him instead. He fled, and his rein crumbled."  
  
"Leaving you with that scar. Did your parents know he was after them?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What did they do to protect themselves?"  
  
"They used a spell to hide their whereabouts, which were known only to the Secret-Keeper."  
  
Dee nodded in understanding. "And this was?"  
  
"Sirius Black at first, my godfather." A bitter taste filled Harry's mouth. "But he convinced them to change to Peter Pettigrew, because he thought Voldemort would never expect Pettigrew to be the Secret-Keeper."  
  
"He betrayed them," she guessed.  
  
"Yes." The familiar fury rose within him, but he choked it back. "Pettigrew betrayed them."  
  
"Did anyone know?"  
  
"No. Everyone still thought Sirius was the Secret-Keeper. He went after Pettigrew and tried to kill him, but Pettigrew was faster. He killed thirteen people with one curse, all of them Muggles, and Sirius took the fall. He went to Azkaban for twelve years."  
  
"Pettigrew escaped...?"  
  
"He's an unregistered Animagus. A rat."  
  
"I take it Black didn't stay in Azkaban."  
  
"No. He escaped—"  
  
"How?"  
  
"Another unregistered Animagus. A black dog."  
  
"So he escaped..."  
  
"And the truth came out. Last year—" Harry stopped, gathered his shaky control. "Last year, Voldemort revealed himself. There was a confrontation, and Sirius died."  
  
There was a long silence.  
  
"Hey, Harry," she said finally.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Unclench your fists before you do some serious damage."  
  
He looked down, and noticed for the first time that his hands were clenched tightly. He relaxed them and when he held his palms close to his face, he could see the outline of four crescent-shaped nail marks on each hand.  
  
"Might want to cut your nails if you plan on telling anyone else about that, or if you think about it too much," Dee noted, folding the newspaper back up. "Done?"  
  
Harry looked at his still-full glass of orange juice and gulped most down. "Yeah."  
  
"Then lets go get your things."  
  
A/N Sorry if anything's spelled wrong or details are wrong. I don't have any references at the moment. 


	4. Chapter the Fourth

Disclaimer: /sigh/ THEY. ARE. NOT. MINE. They belong to Rowling. Oooo- kay?  
  
Chapter the Fourth  
  
Harry panted as he carried his end of the sofa across the room and then slowly lowered it to the floor. For only one person moving, Dee sure had a lot of boxes—boxes that Harry had been helping her move and unpack.  
  
Harry sighed and began to straighten, eager to ease his aching back. He was jerked to a stop, however, when one of his over-large shirt sleeves snapped taunt, caught on something. Harry groaned and leaned back over, trying to see just what held him captive.  
  
"Harry?" Dee frowned at him and approached. Like Harry, she had a fine sheen of sweat on her body, but unlike Harry, she didn't look nearly as weary. "Caught again?"  
  
"Yeah. Probably just a nail or something."  
  
"Shift," she ordered, coming up next to him and squatting, peering underneath the couch. She frowned at something and stood back up, putting her hands underneath the couch and lifting that end. Harry gave a quick tug and his shirt came free, and he wiped the sweat off his forehead as Dee lowered the couch once more.  
  
"One thing's for sure," she said matter-of-factly, "You need new clothes."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Harry said self-consciously.  
  
"Before we do anything else, we're getting you those clothes. This is the fifth time the last two hours that you've gotten stuck on something. Go shower and put on clean clothes, and then we're going shopping."  
  
Harry blinked in astonishment. "But I haven't got any Muggle money," he protested.  
  
"Who said you needed it?" she returned, heading toward the kitchen. "I've got enough; trust me."  
  
"But—I can't take your money!"  
  
"Well, now I know who I can trust it with," she said dryly.  
  
"That's not what I mean!" Harry hurried after her, trying to get her to see his side of things. "I mean that it will feel like charity, and, well..." His voice trailed off.  
  
"Charity?" Dee repeated, lifting her head and turning to face him from where she had started searching for something in the refrigerator. "What're you talking about?"  
  
"You paying for my clothes."  
  
"Oh. That's not charity, Harry," she replied patiently, going back to looking. "Believe me, this work would fly by if we didn't have to keep stopping and rescuing you. Shit, we're out of ham. And cheese. Remind me of that when we go to the grocery store."  
  
"And milk," Harry added, frowning. He still wasn't comfortable with her paying for his things; after all, he'd only known her for about twenty-four hours. But there was something inside of him that urged him to trust her, to go along with anything she said.  
  
"That too. Aren't you going to take your shower?"  
  
"Yeah." Harry hesitated for a moment. "Thanks, Dee."  
  
"Sure thing, sugar."  
  
Dee watched him head out the kitchen, still a bit on the skinny side for a kid his age. She leaned against the counter behind her and stared thoughtfully at the doorway, and began sinking into thoughts better left un- thought. She was so deep into her thoughts that she jumped when her cell phone began ringing. Dee swore and straightened, looking around, trying to figure out just which box the tone had come from. Hissing a curse under her breath, she began shifting boxes, finally found the right one underneath and behind five others in the front room, and dug through the box until her fingers found the smooth metal. She flipped it open and lifted it to her ear, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice.  
  
"What the hell d'you want?"  
  
"Yo sweet thang!" The voice on the other end was annoyingly chipper. "Got that stuff you wanted."  
  
"I told you to fax it to me, asshole," she growled in reply, sitting back on her heels. Above her, she heard the sound of the water beginning to run.  
  
"Yeah, well, our's is busted. You know we ain't got nothing worth shit."  
  
"Yeah, I know." Dee's eyes lifted to the ceiling, as though silently beseeching God for strength. "What've you got for me, then?"  
  
"That's gonna cost you, sweet thang." He sounded incredibly smug, and Dee just couldn't resist the opportunity to blow that to smithereens.  
  
"Is that so?" she purred in reply, staring out the window now. Her green eyes glinted. "Well, what do you say the cost of, oh, say, a year's supply of coke?"  
  
"I want cash."  
  
"You ain't getting cash, brother. And that coke's what you're going without if you don't cough it up." Her voice had turned deadly cold. "Got me?"  
  
"You can't deprive me of my coke," he returned indignantly. The chipperness, thank God, was gone.  
  
"Wanna bet?" Dee returned. "You regularly go to a man named, God help him, Dickie Qucson, who gives you a week's worth of coke in exchange for favors and a quarter of a thousand. The signal that you're ready to buy from him is a red scarf around your head. When you aren't buying from him, you're buying from someone else on the aptly dubbed Black Avenue. This past Sunday, in fact," she said, satisfaction thick in her voice, "you went there, dressed in a dark blue coat. First you went to Mademoiselle's, then to Barker's, then passed yourself off as a flower seller, then—"  
  
He interrupted, telling her everything she wanted to know.  
  
------------------------------------------------------  
  
Harry didn't expect to, but he enjoyed himself on the shopping/grocery trip. Dee had a number of CD's in her car—which was newly washed, compliments of Dudley and Co.—that she allowed Harry to choose from to listen to on the way there and back. For the first time in his life, Harry found himself picking out clothes that fit and that he liked, and Dee was patient with him, occasionally telling him which ones complimented him and which ones he didn't need. Then they browsed the shoe section, and afterwards Harry allowed her to drag him off to the optical center, where they haggled over whether or not Harry needed new glasses, and which ones. They finally got out, both satisfied, and headed over toward the nearest grocery store. Harry didn't mind that trip, either, in finally having a choice in what to eat. They ended up with what seemed like half the store, and then Harry had to run back in with a five pound bill because they had forgotten the ham and cheese anyway. Finally they were off, headed back home, with everything packed into her bottomless trunk.  
  
"That everything, Harry?"  
  
"Yup." He leaned his head back against the headrest, pleasure tracing its way through him.  
  
"We'll get the books you need in Diagon's Alley when your list comes in," Dee told him.  
  
"Yeah. You know about Hogwarts?" he asked suddenly, straightening and looking at her.  
  
"Of course I know about Hogwarts," she replied, sounding amused and shooting at glance at him as she drove. "I'll be teaching there this year."  
  
"Really? DADA?"  
  
"Yup. I'll be going on the train with the rest of you students, though."  
  
"How long will you be teaching?"  
  
"No idea." She shrugged.  
  
"What will you be teaching?"  
  
Dee laughed and glanced at him again. "Trying to get a head start on everyone else?" she teased.  
  
"Yes," Harry said promptly, grinning unabashedly, and Dee laughed again.  
  
"I've been thinking about it, and y'all seem to be pretty well covered." She stared out the windshield thoughtfully, driving almost automatically. "I've been thinking about covering illusions, golems, psychic intrusions, demons most definitely, and maybe even a little bit of Summoning at the end if I think y'all are up to it."  
  
"Summoning? We did that in Charms two years ago."  
  
"I don't think that's the same Summoning I have in mind," she replied in amusement. "I was thinking more along the lines of calling up creatures from Hell."  
  
Harry felt his heart skip a beat and then start pounding even faster.  
  
"You'll actually let students—" he began, but got no further.  
  
"Of course not," she snorted, "And not only because that would be incredibly stupid and irresponsible of me. Summoning requires utter and absolute concentration, sometimes for hours on end, an extensive knowledge of runes, and utter and absolute perfection, both orally and written. Or you're dead. Students and even most adults are incapable of that."  
  
"But you've done it," Harry guessed.  
  
"Summoning is my area of expertise," Dee replied, glancing at Harry again. She turned the corner and her new house came into view. "I am the most qualified Summoner since Roger Amnull III died in 1987."  
  
"Do you know if Dumbledore can do it?"  
  
Dee pulled into her driveway and parked before turning and facing Harry fully. Her face was as serious as though she were passing along the information that someone important had just died.  
  
"Dumbledore could if the need arose," she said, "because he has in the past. However, Summoning requires not only what I have already mentioned, but an iron will and no small amount of strength. Dumbledore's getting old, Harry. The last time he Summoned, the demon he called up nearly destroyed him. He's a damn powerful wizard—but there are some damn powerful beings out there."  
  
Silence reined in the little car for a while as Harry digested that information. In a way, Harry had been aware of it for a while, but always in the back of his mind. To hear it spoken aloud so bluntly...it was unsettling.  
  
"Come on Harry," Dee finally said, "Help me bring these things in. We'll go for a run later today while dinner's cooking. That all right with you?"  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, getting out the car. "That's all right with me."  
  
A/N So that's the next chapter. Hope you liked it. 


	5. Chapter the Fifth

A/N On the road again…I just can't wait to get back on the road again…back home again…updates are gonna be later, then…/neighbor throws shoe in direction of singing/ Okay, okay, I'll shut up! But seriously, y'all, I'm going back home so it may be weeks before you next hear from me. /ducks rotten food and flees/

This chapter will also be shorter due to the packing-up-and-leaving part of going home.

Disclaimer: Dee'n'Sean are the only ones who're mine, everyone else belongs to J.K.R.

Chapter the Fifth

Harry was panting in the first five minutes. Dee wasn't even breathing hard.

"Not very fit, are you?" she asked cheerfully, sounding highly amused. Harry growled in response, and she laughed. "Come on," she said, "Let's head back home before you drop dead."

"Thanks," he managed, and gratefully turned around with her.

Once in the kitchen, he began to gulp down water, but Dee stopped him. "Little sips," she informed him. "Always little sips." He sighed but complied.

"You do that every day?" he asked once his breathing returned to normal.

"Every chance I get," she replied.

"How long and how far can you run?"

"I can run for a few hours," she said with a negligent shrug, "And I think my record so far has been five miles."

"A few hours? Five _miles_?" Harry stared at her in shock.

"Lots of people can do it," she said defensively, and then winced. "Okay, so maybe not _lots_, but it's more than you think."

"What sort of training did you have to go through?" he asked in fascination.

"BUD/S. Er," she closed her eyes and thought, "Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training." Her eyes popped open again and she sighed at Harry's blank look. "It's a type of U.S. Muggle military training. Of course, I wasn't allowed in it because I'm a woman, but it was a program similar to it, exclusively for wizards." A mischievous smile tugged at her lips. "You should see some of the guys. They are really really cute. Nice rears."

Harry snorted and took another sip of his water. "Was that all the training you took?" he finally asked.

"Nope," she replied, and took a sip of her own water. "I took a lot of other military-type training courses, and a lot of magi espionage courses. Had to have flying colors on all my E.O.C. exams, twenty-five/twenty vision, and, believe it or not, we had to be good in chess. I got through on that part by the skin of my teeth, and then probably only because the M.I.C.O.C.A. really needed a good Summoner."

"Chess?"

"Uh-huh." She grinned at him. Harry snorted again, and the oven let out a ding.

"Ha! Dinner's ready." Dee rubbed her hands together. "Let's eat."

A/N This is going on longer than I thought I could take it. Anyways, hoped you liked.


	6. Chapter the Sixth

A/N I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! /giggle/wicked grin/ Aren't y'all glad to see me again?

Disclaimer: See previous five disclaimers.

Chapter the Sixth

Harry lay on his back with his arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. For some reason that he could not explain, he was restless and unable to sleep. He sighed and rolled over, now staring at the wall, and decided that since he couldn't get to sleep, he'd walk around the house.

He stood up and located his glasses on the floor beside the pile of blankets he had been sleeping on, shoving them onto his nose. Even though a pair of bed slippers were beside his glasses as well, he didn't bother putting them on, because Dee kept her house warm—she did _not _like the cold.

Harry silently padded across the floor and out into the hallway. Dee's room was dark, but the bathroom light was on; a habit, he had found out, from Dee's days and nights baby-sitting her nieces and nephews.

He turned toward the stairs, figuring he'd go downstairs to the kitchen and have a midnight snack. Halfway down the stairs, he realized that the kitchen light was also on, and there were voices coming from inside, one of which was Dee's, and the other of which belonged to…

"Damn it, Lucius, if you can't do your job right then I damn well won't pay you!"

Dee's voice sounded extremely frustrated, and extremely angry. Lucius Malfoy's voice sounded the same.

"Well, I can't exactly do my job right if you don't tell me what you want, now can I?" he snarled back.

Harry slowly walked the rest of the way down the stairs and stopped just beyond the doorway, closing his eyes and just listening.

"And if I tell you what I want, you'll give me only that information and nothing else," Dee snapped. "And I want the whole cake, not just a slice."

"I've told you all I know!"

"The hell you have!"

There was a long moment of silence in the kitchen.

"I've told you all I know," Lucius repeated in a low, calmer voice.

"And I've called you a liar," Dee replied in a voice just as calm. "You've told me no more than what I already know. Tell me something new. Tell me something new, and maybe I'll reconsider my offer."

Lucius hesitated. "What do you mean?"

Dee sighed. "Alright. Let's say I'll double my price."

"If the Dark Lord finds out I'm doing this—"

"That's your problem, not mine."

There was another long pause, and then Lucius began speaking, in a low, harsh whisper. Harry opened his eyes and leaned closer, straining his ears to hear every word.

"The Dark Lord plans to resurrect Black in a secured area and use a dementor to administer the Kiss." He took a deep breath. "Then he's going to get a Summoner, Derrick Thurston, to Summon a relatively minor demon, and then imbue Black with the demon." Lucius' voice dropped even lower then, so that Harry couldn't hear what he said. After a moment though, he could hear Dee's voice, coming closer then going away again, so that Harry figured she was pacing the length of the kitchen. All the while she was repeating the same phrase over and over again.

"Sonovabitch, sonovabitch, sonovabitch, sonovabitch…"

The tirade continued for many minutes, but finally Dee spoke again.

"All right. All right. Get out of my house now. You'll find the money where I told you it can be found, tomorrow morning between twelve and one. The other half will be same place the next day, same time. Miss either of those times and you don't get half your money. All clear?"

"Yes, of course." There was the sound of a chair being scraped across the floor.

"I'll be calling on you again."

"You won't be if I get killed over this," he replied.

Harry could imagine Dee shrugging. "Then I'll just have to find someone better to use, won't I?"

Harry didn't hear anything else until the backdoor shut, rather sharply. He leaned back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling and figuring that he'd better go back upstairs before Dee came out, but unable to find the strength in his legs. Just as he was turning away, he heard Dee's voice again.

"Come on in, Harry. I expect you have questions, don't you?"

A/N Mwahahahahhaha! Howzat for making it go somewhere, Sic? /evil grin/


	7. Chapter the Seventh

A/N Yes, I know you weren't expecting that one. /smirk/ To be utterly truthful, I wasn't expecting that one either. Seems like Dee hasn't told me all her secrets yet.

Chapter the Seventh

Taking a deep breath, Harry slowly forced his feet to carry him into the kitchen. Dee was sitting at the table, sipping absently at a cup of cocoa; there was another cup of it across the table.

"Sit," she said when he had entered, and she gestured to the chair in front of the other cup. "Start asking whenever you want, though I must tell you that I might not answer all of them."

Harry nodded and sat. Picking up the cup, he took a sip, then another. He had no idea where to start.

The minutes ticked by. Dee got up and re-filled her cup, then sat back down, patiently waiting. Finally Harry blurted out, "What's going to happen to Sirius?"

Dee raised an eyebrow. "You mean Black?" She shrugged. "Absolutely nothing."

"But—but—I heard—"

"Yes, I know what you heard, and what you heard was what the Dark Lord _thinks_ is going to happen. But it won't, you know."

"Why not?"

"You can't resurrect someone who's not dead," she said calmly.

"But he is dead." The words felt like they were ripped from his throat.

"No, he isn't," she replied simply. Harry stared at her dully.

"Yes, he is. I saw him—" Harry's voice cracked, and he tried again. "I saw him die."

"You saw him, all right, but you didn't see him die." Dee leaned forward, her gaze intent on his face. "Harry, not everything you see is what's real. You saw him hit by a curse and then fall into the black curtain, the other side of which is the realm of death. _But you didn't see him die_."

"How is that possible, if he's in the realm of death?" Harry argued.

"Ghosts are dead, yet they walk the realm of the living." She shrugged lightly. "What makes you think that the living can't walk in the realm of the dead?"

Harry's mind began whirling with the possibilities…Sirius wasn't dead! But…

"How do you know he's still alive?" he asked suspiciously. "Maybe that curse killed him."

"I know because I saw him."

"You—you _saw _him?"

Dee nodded. "Yes." She sighed and leaned forward a bit again. "Harry, I haven't been completely truthful to you. The _real _reason I'm here, in this house next to yours, is because I made a promise to Black." Her eyes held his gaze. "The case I was working on, the one my superiors are investigating, dealt with the black curtain. A rogue band of wizards in the U.S. were using it to send people into the realm of the dead and then pluck them back out again in a different location. They sent me into that other world, to wait for one of the wizards and track him, to kill him, to emerge from that different location, and to kill anyone else there.

"Then I ran across Black. He obviously wasn't a part of the band—well, obviously to me, anyway. It wasn't so obvious to my superiors, however, and they didn't agree with my actions when I mentioned in my report that I let him live. What my superiors _don't _know, however, is that there is a greater power controlling the wizarding band—I have reason to believe that that greater power is your Lord Voldemort.

"Black and I cut a deal. If I were to keep you safe and out of Voldemort's hands while over here, then he would give me all the help I asked for if I could get him out."

"If?" Harry asked.

"Yes." Dee nodded. "No one's ever pulled a living person from the black curtain before."

"But how…?"

Dee held one hand up, already knowing his question. "Only those who have the training can pull themselves from the black curtain. I can do so, as can precious few other people; namely, those who were in the band of rogue wizards. But Black does _not_ have that talent, so I will have to pull him out myself." For a moment, Dee looked frightened, something that very much scared Harry.

"Is it possible to pull them out?" he asked hesitantly.

"No one knows," Dee replied helplessly. "It's been tried, certainly, but no one's yet succeeded."

"Is that why even Dumbledore believes that he's well and truly dead? Because no one's ever been pulled from the other side before?"

Dee nodded. "That's right." She sighed, slumping in her chair. "I have no idea if I can do it or not," she said, almost to herself. "If I can't do it, we'll both be dead. If I can do it…" Her gaze searched his out. "That could be just as dangerous."

Silence fell in Dee's kitchen. After a while, Dee stirred and straightened. "Any more questions, Harry?"

He blew out a breath and looked at her. He suddenly remembered what she had said, about being sent to kill people.

"How many people have you killed?"

"You don't want the answer to that," she replied, her voice flat and her lips thinning as she pressed them together. "No, Harry," she said when he opened his mouth, "All you need to know that I have killed in the past, and I will kill again. That's all you need to know."

"Does it get easier?" The question popped out of Harry's mouth before he could stop it. Dee looked at him with shuttered eyes and a blank face.

"For some. Not all."

"Why?"

She stared at him. Harry clarified his question. "Why does it get easier for some?"

"Because they forget," she said in a low voice, "They forget that the lives they take are indeed that: lives. They force it to the back of their minds, and kill."

"Why?" Harry forced the question past his restricted throat. "Why do they force it back?"

"Because otherwise they go insane." Her voice was strained. "To think too much, Harry, is to go insane?"

Harry had felt like he was walking up to a cliff edge. With his next question, he felt like he was throwing himself off it.

"Does it get easier for you?"

A shudder ran through her body, and she abruptly stood and carried her mug to the sink.

"Goodnight, Harry."

Harry followed her to bed a long time later.

A/N Well, that turned into a sobering conversation. Wonder what'll happen the next chapter.


End file.
